Unfortunately, medical treatment must be dispensed in the field in the event of traumatic events such as automobile accidents, airplane crashes, train collisions, workplace injury, and other such traumas. Specifically, emergency medical service (EMS) personnel, including firemen, respond to human injuries on a daily basis. It has been reported that over 40,000 EMS calls were responded to in Seattle, Wash. in the year 2000. Of these, over half of them required advanced life-saving techniques. The use of intravenous medication is significant and common for “in the field” medical treatment of physical trauma. However, the application of intravenous medication requires that the intravenous medication be delivered through a gravity fed system so that the intravenous medication bag must be gravitationally higher than the patient. Traditionally, the EMS personnel holds the bag higher than the patient to insure that the medication is being properly gravity fed. This requires that the EMS personnel, rather than performing other needed medical services, is required to simply hold an intravenous bag. This requirement wastes the resources of a valuable trained professional who would otherwise be providing much needed medical services. Alternatively, a non-EMS individual can be utilized to hold the intravenous bag while the EMS personnel provides medical services. However, this requires that a non-trained person crowd the patient while potentially life-saving medical services are being rendered. Therefore, providing a means for supporting an intravenous bag in a proper position without needlessly occupying EMS personnel and without crowding a patient with non-EMS personnel is a problem to which much attention should be directed.
Although intravenous supports are known, none are able to be used in the field due to the inability of these supports to be collapsible or be easily transportable. The EMS personnel carries equipment, typically, in a medical equipment bag that approximates 19 inches in length, 12 inches in width, and 8 inches in depth. As such, a collapsible, transportable intravenous stand that fits in EMS equipment bags is much needed for the medical industry and particularly for EMS personnel.
Previous intravenous stands simply cannot provide for this much needed application. U.S. Pat. No. 4,744,536 discloses a Collapsible Pole and Stand Combination. This patent is for internal use as indicated by the wheels used at the base of the bag stand. Any attempt to use such a pole on an uneven surface would not work as the pole would be unable to be maintained in an upright position. Further, the base is designed so as to require the legs to be maintained in a perfectly parallel position to be supported. This patent does not disclose the use of support arms on the legs of the base to provide for greater stability for field use. As such, this pole could not be used in the field. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,294 provides for a T-shaped base, castor wheels, skid member and pole lacking telescoping features. Such a design cannot fit in EMS equipment bags. U.S. Pat. No. 4,629,074 shows a ceiling mounted “stand” and would not have application for “in the field” medical treatment. U.S. Pat. No. 4,905,944 requires a large base that is not suitable for easy transportation and cannot be practically contained in a medical equipment bag. U.S. Pat. No. 4,892,279 includes an interior cam-clutch section, pneumatic piston in the base, up to four intravenous hangers, negative inclined legs, double-wheeled castors, and movable hanger rods. This configuration simply makes this invention too bulky and too great a cross section to sufficiently be transported within an EMS equipment bag.